Neverwinter Nights is the most streamlined of those but the witcher made in the same engine is far superior.

Play Neverwinter if your new to these kinds of games. Beside it being a bit more modern it's a great way to get you into these games without the hurdles and technical limitations the earlier ones have. Those games may be better to some or most people but Neverwinter is definitely not the worst of the lot. In fact it's one of my favorites.

Planescape: Torment.

It has the best plot, takes the least time to finish, and its combat is easy.

For comparison, the main twist of Baldur's Gate 1/2 (you are the son of the dead god Bhaal) is basically just an excuse to have everyone try to kill you. The main twist of Torment (your immortality and its nature) is used to explore questions of responsibility for past transgressions and personal change. You can also talk the final boss into giving up without a fight.

None of the games on this poll are especially light on time commitment or thinking commitment. Baldur's Gate has simpler mechanics compared to the others and a straight-forward story, but is not short. Neverwinter Nights 1 is kind of a middleground in complexity of mechanics, story, and length, but its original campaign is poor quality. Planescape can be on the shorter side, since it doesn't have much combat, but it largely depends on how fast a reader you are. However, Planescape has some of the richest storytelling in any CRPG (or any game) and absolutely demands that you pay attention. Baldur's Gate 2 is one of the greatest epics in CRPGs, but that means it's gigantic and asks a lot of the player in terms of learning its mechanics. IWD1 and IWD2 are largely combat crawls that emphasize mechanical mastery over story or roleplaying, so they might be too filler-y and/or too complex.

Rather than picking any of the poll options, I'd recommend you check out Shadowrun: Dragonfall or Age of Decadence. Both are short, excellent, and thin on filler.

I intentionally didn't include new CRPGs like Tyranny, Shadowrun, Wasteland 2 or Pillars of Eternity, because the 90's feel, mechanics and writing are what's attracting me in the first place.

Thanks for your bulletpoints about the poll games, I'll see which is more fit for me.

Fallout 1 definitely wins in this category, it's a very tight package with very little filler.

Neverwinter Nights, Baldurs gate 2, or Planescape are fine choices. Others have pretty much explained why so I'll just leave it at that. Baldurs gate 2 is the ideal choice and is the king in my eyes for a single player experience, and neverwinter nights is the king for a multi-player experience. I would imagine it's a bit trickier to play neverwinter nights online nowadays though.

The only one on your list I've played is Icewind Dale 1 and its expansion Heart of Winter. Which is probably weird since it's probably the least popular of your choices. I played it at a weird point in my life when I didn't play video games. Seriously, it was one of only two or three I played over the course of 3-4 years. I loved it a lot. I picked it up with its expansion in a bargain bin and played it between recording songs which was what I spent most of my free time on then. There was little plot to speak of and loads of combat. Hard combat. I died a lot. Not sure how I ever got through it knowing as little about D&D as I did. I remember spamming fireball a lot which I later learned is probably one of the most useful/overpowered D&D spells.

It sounds to me you don't really want that much story so I think Icewind Dale 2? Fallout 1 is a good choice to get through pretty quickly but isn't on your list.

I'd hesitate to call any of these games "The Modern Warfare 2 of CRPGs." Planescape is the lightest of them mechanically (you can avoid a lot of combat) but it's also mostly dense, ponderous dialogue.

To be honest I don't think any of these are really within spitting distance of "The Modern Warfare 2 of CRPGs" so I'm curious how you'll make out. Please post the results! Whatever game you decide.

Planescape is light on combat, but the story part is pretty heavy, so I don`t know if it really fits your criteria. That said Planescape might have the best story in videogames and it does some truly fascinating things with well trodden storytelling gimmicks like immortality and amnesia.

CRPG's are not short & don't aim to pack as much fun as they can in certain timespan. That said, Planescape Torment is one of the shortest games in this list and is a really good game. But you still need read a lot and be invested in the story, so it does require a certain amount of brain activity.

Fallout 1 is fairly short and very good.